


All His Demons

by daisyisawriter91



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst and Tragedy, Don't Read This, Grief/Mourning, Henry is Not Okay, Henry-centric, If You're Having a Good Day, Literally Just Sadness, M/M, Past Character Death, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, it will make you cry, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 11:23:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14331408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisyisawriter91/pseuds/daisyisawriter91
Summary: Henry’s father used to tell him that the answers to life’s problems were never at the bottom of a bottle. But damn if it didn’t feel good to look, especially with…with everything that happened.





	All His Demons

Henry’s father used to tell him that the answers to life’s problems were never at the bottom of a bottle. But damn if it didn’t feel good to look, especially with…with everything that happened.  
Amber liquid sloshed, a bit haphazardly, into the glass. His fourth of the night. Soon enough, he’d pass out, and be surrendered into oblivion. As it should be. After all, what did the waking world have to offer him, anymore?  
The world outside carried on, entirely oblivious to his plight. The lights of the city of angels filtered into the other wise dark apartment, somehow emptier than it had ever been, sirens sounded in the distance. Bad things happened to everyone all the time in Los Angeles, Henry would be arrogant to say that the world revolved around him. But it felt like the world had ended.  
His throat had become numb to the burn of the scotch. Maybe not the best thing, but it would get him through another night. And in the morning, he’d have to cover up his dark circles, paste on a smile, and act like nothing was wrong. What a fucking world he lived in.  
“Darling, you know I love my indulgences, but you’re going a bit too far for even my tastes.” A voice Henry recognized all too well sounded throughout the painfully empty room. Henry looked up through his sluggish haze and saw Balthazar standing in the doorway of their bedroom.  
“Nothing feels right except this.” Henry answered, voice raspy. Balthazar walked over to him and kissed his forehead, touch feather-light and barely there. That wasn’t right. Nothing was.   
“I’m worried about you, Henry. You can’t do this to yourself.” Balthazar said, a worried crease in his brow that Henry never liked to see more prominent than ever before. “If you continue doing things like this, you’ll be lost.”  
“Would that really be so bad?” Henry asked, genuinely.  
“Yes, it would. Because this world can get dark. It needs your light in it. People need you.”  
“One doesn’t.” Henry spat, bitterly. “There isn’t a word strong enough for him.”   
“I know, love, I know. But if you dwell on it, you’ll drive yourself insane. Please, darling, go to sleep.” Balthazar urged, pain in his voice. Pain for Henry. Henry couldn’t resist that tone. He couldn’t cause Balthazar any more pain, he didn’t have the right.  
So, he stood up from his crease in the couch. He set the glass and the bottle onto the table and stumbled to their - his - bed. He didn’t even bother to take off his glasses. There’d be no point, really. There wasn’t much of a point in anything, he realized.  
He knew that when he woke up in the morning, Balthazar would be gone. And if his utter exhaustion hadn’t taken over, it would’ve been enough of a reason to never go to sleep.

  
Henry woke with a near-blinding headache and the constant ache in his chest that he would likely live with, forever. The unbearable noise that caused him to be yanked from the void was his phone, buzz-buzz-buzzing away.   
He reached over, not even bothering to look, an answered with a grunt.  
 _“Hey, man, it’s Benny. Are you…are you doing alright?”_ The voice announced, nails on a chalkboard.  
“No.” Henry bit back. He hung up. He wasn’t in the mood for Benny. Or really, anyone. All he wanted was to be left alone, but the morons around him kept thinking he needed someone to talk to. To hell with that.  
The bed was cold. It always would be, he realized. It would never have the sort of warmth he’d grown accustomed to ever again. Because the other half of it was in a dirt bed, now.  
Somehow, and he was quite unsure how, he pulled himself out of bed to go to the bathroom. And once he was out of bed, he didn’t particularly want to get back into it. But he wasn’t sure what he actually did want.  
He ate the first thing he could find in the kitchen, simply because he hadn’t eaten in about 24 hours and his stomach was full of knives because of that. The apple was tasteless and unpleasant, but he choked it down anyways.  
He didn’t know what time it was. Hadn’t the faintest idea. It could’ve been 6 AM or 6 PM for all he knew. And for all he cared.   
Henry picked up his phone from where he’d abandoned it and scrolled through the digital photo albums. He didn’t have to for very long. He clicked the one labelled ‘Balthazar’. It wouldn’t help, Lord knew it wouldn’t help, but he wanted to, anyways.  
Photos, videos, every bit of recorded evidence that Henry had of Balthazar’s existence was here. And he was going to look at all of it, plunge himself into an even deeper hell than he was already in.  
Every photo told a different story, and Henry remembered all of them. He relived the story in full with each new picture. Which was why it took him nearly an hour to get to the first one he’d ever taken of Balthazar.   
He was smiling. That was it, the entirety of what mattered about the photo. And when Henry saw it, he cursed the entire world for what it had done to him. What it had done to Balthazar.  
What drove people to violence? What drove people to destroy the lives of those around them by forcibly taking them?   
A single bullet had ended it all. One right over Balthazar’s heart had stopped it, entirely. And Henry hadn’t even been there to stop it. To take the bullet for him, or to pull him out of the way. Something. Anything.  
Henry made a decision. He turned off his phone, images of Balthazar fading to black. He got dressed as quickly as he could and was out the door in twenty minutes.  
He was out all day. He didn’t have the strength to return to an empty home. And when he finally did, he returned without a single drop of alcohol and a tattoo. His first and only, a quote placed directly over his heart.  
 _My love for you shall live forever. You, however, did not._


End file.
